Various wireless standards, such as the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) standards 802.11 a/b/c/e/g/i (referred to collectively as IEEE 802.11), provide for wireless connectivity between wireless devices, such as, for example, between a wireless station and an access point connected to an infrastructure network. In conventional wireless standards, the communication of information between peer wireless devices typically is routed through the access point. To illustrate, to communicate information between a first wireless device and a second wireless device, the first wireless device wirelessly transmits one or more frames of information to the access point, where the frames designate the second wireless device as their destination. The access point then modifies the headers of the frames and transmits them for reception by the second wireless device.
The process of using the access point as an intermediary has a number of drawbacks. For one, the communication of information is delayed by routing it through the access point. Moreover, the wireless channel used by the wireless devices and access point to communicate information (also referred to as the “base” channel) may be crowded with traffic from other wireless devices similarly seeking to transmit information via the access point. As a result, access contention mechanisms often are implemented, which typically results in additional delay.
Accordingly, an improved technique for communicating information between wireless devices would be advantageous.